Best of
Local-History

1991

The Betsy-Tacy Companion: A Biography of Maud Hart Lovelace


Sharla Scannell Whalen - 1991
    Includes over 400 photos of Lovelace and friends and family members who appear as characters in these books.

Deadly Greed: The Riveting True Story of the Stuart Murder Case, Which Rocked Boston and Shocked the Nation


Joe Sharkey - 1991
      On October 23, 1989, affluent businessman Charles Stuart made a frantic 911 call from his car to report that he and his seven-months-pregnant wife, Carol, a lawyer, had been robbed and shot by a black male in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston. By the time police arrived, Carol was dead, and the baby was soon lost as well. The attack incited a furor during a time of heightened racial tension in the community.   Even more appalling, while the injuries were real, Stuart’s story was a hoax: He was the true killer. But the tragedy would continue with the arrest of Willie Bennett, a young man Stuart identified in a line-up. Stuart’s deception would only be exposed after a shocking revelation from his brother and, finally, his suicide, when he jumped into the freezing waters of the Mystic River.   As the story unraveled, police would put together the disturbing pieces of a puzzle that included Stuart’s distress over his wife’s pregnancy, his romantic interest in a coworker, and life insurance fraud. In an account that “builds and grips like a novel” (Kirkus Reviews), New York Times journalist Joe Sharkey delivers “a picture of a man consumed by naked ambition, unwilling to let anyone or anything get in his way” (Library Journal).  Revised and updated, this ebook also includes photos and a new epilogue by the author.

The Natural History of Puget Sound Country


Arthur R. Kruckeberg - 1991
    This thoughtful and eloquent natural history of the Puget Sound region begins with a discussion of how the ice ages and vulcanism shaped the land and then examines the natural attributes of the region--flora and fauna, climate, special habitats, life histories of key organisms--as they pertain to the functioning ecosystem. Mankind's effects upon the natural environment are a pervasive theme of the book. Kruckeberg looks at both positive and negative aspects of human interaction with nature in the Puget basin. By probing the interconnectedness of all natural aspects of one region, Kruckeberg illustrates ecological principles at work and gives us a basis for wise decision-making.The Natural History of Puget Sound Country is a comprehensive reference, invaluable for all citizens of the Northwest, as well as for conservationists, biologists, foresters, fisheries and wildlife personnel, urban planners, and environmental consultants everywhere. Lavishly illustrated with over three hundred photographs and drawings, it is much more than a beautiful book. It is a guide to our future.

The Baltimore Book: New Views of Local History


Linda Shopes - 1991
    The Baltimore Book is both a history of "the other Baltimore" and a tour guide to places in the city that are important to labor, African American, and women's history. The book grew out of a popular local bus tour conducted by public historians, the People's History Tour of Baltimore, that began in 1982. This book records and adds sites to that tour; provides maps, photographs, and contemporary documents; and includes interviews with some of the uncelebrated people whose experiences as Baltimoreans reflect more about the city than Francis Scott Key ever did.The tour begins at the B&O Railroad Station at Camden Yards, site of the railroad strike of 1877, moves on to Hampden-Woodbury, the mid-19th century cotton textile industry's company town, and stops on the way to visit Evergreen House and to hear the narratives of ex-slaves. We travel to Old West Baltimore, the late 19th-century center of commerce and culture for the African American community; Fells Point; Sparrows Point; the suburbs; Federal Hill; and Baltimore's "renaissance" at Harborplace. Interviews with community activists, civil rights workers, Catholic Workers, and labor union organizers bring color and passion to this historical tour. Specific labor struggles, class and race relations, and the contributions of women to Baltimore's development are emphasized at each stop. In the series Critical Perspectives on the Past, edited by Susan Porter Benson, Stephen Brier, and Roy Rosenzweig.

A Field Guide to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey : Its Flora, Fauna, Ecology, and Historic Sites


Howard P. Boyd - 1991
    While the bulk of the book (over 300 pages) contains listings and illustrations of the plant and animal species that live and grow with the Pine Barrens, Boyd begins his book by explaining and defining what makes this sandy soiled, wooded habitat so diverse and so unusual. But just as the title suggests, the essence of this text is its devotion to identifying, classifying, characterizing and illustrating every living creature, from the whirligig beetle to the large-toothed aspen, that makes its home in the Pine Barrens. Over 700 species, listed first under their common then scientific nomenclatures, are included. Each entry gives a detailed, non-technical description of a Pine Barren plant or animal, indicating when and where it is most likely to appear. Complementing most listings is an original ink drawing that will greatly aid the reader in the field as they search for and try to identify specific flora and fauna.

Female Piety in Puritan New England: The Emergence of Religious Humanism


Amanda Porterfield - 1991
    She finds that by conflating marriage as a trope of grace with marriage as a social construct, Puritan ministers invested relationships between husbands and wives with religious meaning. Images of female piety represented the humility that Puritans believed led all Christians to self-control and, ultimately, to love. But while images of female piety were important for men primarily as aids to controlling aggression and ambition, they were primarily attractive to women as aids to exercising indirect influence over men and obtaining public recognition and status.

Nature Incorporated: Industrialization and the Waters of New England


Ted Steinberg - 1991
    What started as a research paper at Brandeis University expanded into a book that explores the role of the Industrial Revolution in this aggressive stance toward the natural world. The transformation of nature is at least as old as our presence as a species on this planet. But the advent of the industrial age marked a shift in humankind's relations with the earth. Steinberg concerns himself mainly with describing this shift as it was felt in New England, to journey back to a time when the task of subduing nature was full of hard-fought battles and much less arrogance.

Tejano Origins in Eighteenth-Century San Antonio


Gerald E. Poyo - 1991
    Since its first publication in 1991, this history of early San Antonio has won a 1992 Citation from the San Antonio Conservation Society and a Presidio La Bahía Award from the Sons of the Republic of Texas.